The Pumpkin Patch

On Wednesday, our home school group gathered at a local pumpkin patch. Although it was an unseasonably warm day, (it seems like every time we go to this pumpkin patch, it's always hot!) the kids had lots of fun. The kids dove right in to the corn-kernel "sand" box when we first got there...

...except for Daniel, who immediately started loading pumpkins into a wagon and running up and down the rows of pumpkins. He sure is a boy on the go!

The kids had fun playing hide and seek in the hay-bale maze.

Going for a hay ride

We did a couple of activities, such as measuring pumpkins and measuring each other. Here the kids are listening to Ashley (the girl who organized our activity for the day) read a book about pumpkins.

Calvin and Norah making corn angels... I guess if you live in an area that doesn't get snow you have to get creative!

Norah wanted to be buried with corn kernels

Everyone was getting pretty hot by now!

Our little Explorer group (again missing one of the families!)

Go Bears!

On Monday night we had our friends the Fikkerts (Matt and Kristi and Kevin and Sharon), and Jeremy Lyzenga, over to watch the Packers/Bears game. Happily for Scott, the Bears won... hopefully the Fikkerts (all Packers fans) will still come to our house again! Emily and Norah in their opposing team jerseys... thankfully at the age of two, the girls don't hold it against each other!

We all got to enjoy chocolate cake (thanks to Kristi!) to celebrate Sharon's birthday, which was the day before. Kristi was so thoughtful and creative to make a sunflower cake using marshmallow peeps, one of Sharon's favorite candies, as the petals of the flower. Great job, Kristi!

Happy Birthday, Sharon!!!

The guys watching the game

The Fair

Last week, we went to the Tulare County Fair with our good friends and neighbors, the Boersmas. None of the rides/exhibits were open, which was actually nice because we didn't battle any crowds (and didn't have to battle any whining about going on rides)! We had fun looking at all the farm animals, though!

Colors and Shapes

On Wednesday, it was my turn to plan our Explorer day (home school co-op for kindergartners and pre-schoolers). I decided to do a lesson on colors and shapes using the books Mouse Shapes and Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. Once the kids arrived (except for one family that couldn't make it) I started out by reviewing various shapes with the kids, reading Mouse Shapes, and then having them create their own pictures using pre-cut shapes. The kids did well with that. Then, we went outside, read Mouse Paint and learned about primary colors. After the book the kids donned paint shirts and got busy mixing primary colors to see what new color resulted and using the paint to paint our cardboard box "fort". That was lots of fun -- what kid doesn't like painting?! We had a great morning... and it really gave me the opportunity to be a teacher again!

Calvin's fish -- of course he had to copy one of the pictures from the book! He's so happy to create anything, as long as he has a pattern to follow!

We even got to enjoy chocolate chip muffins baked in various shapes!

A Spontaneous Adventure

On Sunday morning, I went to church early with the boys to bring them to Sunday School. Scott was supposed to have joined us with Norah for the 2nd church service, but I waited (and worried) and he never showed up. When I got home from church with the boys, Scott said he decided not to come because Norah had fallen asleep on the couch and he didn't want to wake her up. So, since she took a nap in the morning, we decided on a quick, spontaneous trip up to the mountains. We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and snacks and drove up Hwy 198 into Sequoia National Park. After stopping for a late lunch at Hospital Rock we continued on to Morro Rock and made the climb to the top with the kids. Scott was pretty nervous the whole time, but we managed to not lose anyone down the side of the rock. After Morro Rock we went to see the world's biggest tree, the General Sherman. Once again, we were reminded of the amazing beauty of God's creation, right in our back yard. At the top of Morro Rock

a little snack (the kids still need a little work at looking at me for a picture!)

the big trees

a view of Morro Rock from the road

a little meltdown

the world's biggest tree

Homeschooling Update

Well, we've been busy at work doing kindergarten at home for a month now. I can't believe it's gone so quickly! We've definitely had some ups and downs and I'm figuring out what works and what doesn't work, but overall I'd say we're doing very well! Most days, I thoroughly enjoy what we're doing and I'm completely confident that we're doing the right thing. Anyway, here are just a couple of pictures of what we're doing. Here's the first workbook of the reading curriculum I got for Daniel. We're supposed to focus on a letter (or 2) a week and do a couple of worksheets related to that letter. We've decided to ditch the workbook. Daniel hated it -- he knows all his letters, doesn't particularly like coloring and really dislikes the monotonous, uncreative workbook pages. So, for the time being, here's what we're doing...

After reading Ruth Beechick's great little book, A Home Start in Reading, I'm following her suggested activities for introducing short vowel sounds and combining them with consonants and just playing around with them to make real and nonsense words. We started simply with one vowel and 3 consonants, but we've made it through all of them now, and Daniel is doing very well with reading simple, 3-letter, short vowel words.

He (Calvin joins us sometimes) especially likes playing around with letters if I can somehow make our "work" a game. One thing I've done is to use the Candyland board game to challenge him to make words with a given set of letters -- if he's successful, he can move his player.

Here is what Daniel really likes to do! He bought a bow and arrow with money he earned from recycling and Scott got a couple bales of hay for him to use for a target. What fun!

Explorers Making the Dough

Lest anyone be concerned about child labor laws, wondering if we have resorted to making our kids earn a little extra "dough", I'm referring to our latest Explorer outing on Wednesday where we went to the home of one of the other home school families and made play dough. Who would have thought the kids would have so much fun with such a simple task... I think a big part of the enjoyment was getting to do it with other kids. The mom (Jenni) who hosted was so well-prepared; each family made a batch of play dough and then the kids gathered around the table, made the letters of their names, and then just had fun rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters to make shapes. My boys also had fun playing sword fights with the boys who hosted, too! I'll post the recipe we used in the sidebar of the blog. It was such an easy recipe and worked well every time.

Hume Lake Country Fair

This weekend, we went to Hume Lake and got to enjoy their Labor Day weekend Country Fair. We drove up Friday afternoon, stayed in a very rustic cabin overnight, and had fun with all the festivities on Saturday. The kids had a lot of fun!

Daniel did the trampoline jump. He was pretty excited about how high you can jump when you're all roped in.

Calvin (and Norah) wanted their faces painted. The girl who painted his face was a little surprised when he informed her he wanted a yellow swallow-tail butterfly (he's really into butterflies!), but she was a good sport and painted it to his specifications.

Norah is going fishing

Daniel is doing his best to knock over all the milk cans

Norah and her daddy

The view of the fair from the top of the fire truck we all went for a ride on

The kids on the fire truck

Scott did a zip line from the top of this platform and went sailing across the trees and over a pond. Fun!

He survived!